


That's what young love is all about

by oliwellwhocares



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: But I promise it's mostly fluff, Fluff, Holding Hands, Introspection, M/M, References to Killua's awful childhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-02 02:04:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16296194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oliwellwhocares/pseuds/oliwellwhocares
Summary: Holding Gon’s hand should not be this difficult.Killua thinks about feelings and tries to figure it out.





	That's what young love is all about

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Bubblegum Bitch by Marina and the Diamonds. No, the song has nothing to do with this, this sentence just suited them. Warnings for Killua's canon childhood, but really, everything is mostly okay.

Holding Gon’s hand should not be this difficult.

He had held people’s hand before.

Okay, he had held Alluka’s hand before. And Illumi’s, he thinks. He has a very, very vague memory, of a time before he hated his family. So, 3 years old, at most.

And he hadn’t seen Alluka for years. And he preferred not to think about it, because thinking about his family made him feel choked up and panicked. Every time, he felt like if he thought about Illumi’s huge eyes, or his father’s piercing glare, or his mother’s unwavering red dot, for too long, he would blink and he would find himself chained to a wall, an assassin, heir to the Zoldyck family, lonely and far away from Gon and he had to stop thinking about it.

Gon. He was always telling Killua how clever he thought he was, and Killua knew that he was, in a sense. He was good at strategy, he was always thinking about what they should do, how they could get out of a situation, what their enemies were capable of and how to beat them or escape them. Because that’s was he was trained to be good at. But when Gon’s eyes shined and he told him, with his enthusiastic tone and a way too loud voice, “Killua, you’re so great!”, he had no idea about all the rest.

No idea about the fact that just thinking about his own little sister, locked away in his awful family’s basement, made him feel so much pain that he was just forgetting about her most of the time. Just forgetting about her because thinking about it was just too complicated.

Gon had no idea that Killua had no memories between his brother raising his hand towards him, at the end of the exam, and the moment when he found himself surrounded in cold and staring into Milluki’s angry eyes. He knew what happened, rationally, because different people had told him, and parts of it were obvious. But he also had no idea, and he was terrified at the idea that everybody could just be lying, and maybe Gon had never come back maybe he was dead or maybe he had forgotten about him and maybe he was just imagining all of this and he needed to _stop thinking about it_.

Gon had no idea that sometimes, all of this thoughts invaded him, and when he opened his eyes hours had passed and he had no idea if he could do anything when he got in this state. He had been lucky so far, but maybe someday someone was going to attack him, or worse, attack Gon, while he was like that. And maybe he would not be able to do anything. It was so _stupid_.

So. That was the stupid things he did. But there were also the stupid things he didn’t do.

Like hold Gon’s hand.

Not that they didn’t hold hands. They did, because Gon took his hand, constantly. Among other things. He gripped his wrist to pull him somewhere, leaned against his shoulder and fell asleep in three seconds flat, linked their arms together to walk in the street.

It was… It wasn’t bad. But it was weird, even though it shouldn’t be. He perfectly knew it shouldn’t be, because they were twelve and best friends, and it should have been normal to touch casually, affectionately.

This was only one of the many things that Killua wished he could be normal about, but it was the one that was bothering him the most right now.

Gon’s hands were warm. All of him was always warm, like all of this time he spent under the sun didn’t only colored his skin but also infused him, leaving him to slowly give back this warmth to the people around him, all through the day. Through the night too, he remembered those hours passed in the small room in Trick Tower, slumped against each other, inevitably ending up in a pillow fight when one of them opened their eyes before the other. Then again, maybe he just wasn’t used to other people’s warmth. And he was always so cold.

So. Gon held his hand all the time. And it was fine, really, a little bit distracting sometimes, but mostly after, when he was alone in his room at the Heaven Arena and trying to meditate, trying to focus, trying not to think about his sister, not to think about his brother, not to think about his family, not to think about Gon too much but not too little either. He always ended up going back to the other boy’s room anyway. Going back to easy laughter and recklessness and acting instead of thinking.

But he realized way too quickly that just because Gon was like that, and he could be with Gon, didn’t meant that he could be like that himself.

He first tried to hold his friend’s hand during their first morning after being separated from Leorio and Kurapika. Before that, he didn’t even think they were really friends. During the exam, Gon had been affectionate, obviously, but he had seen that as just a part of who this weird guy was, and not something he was allowed to reciprocate.

Then, the three of them had come to Kukuroo Mountain. After that, even the darkest parts of himself, the ones that whispered that he wasn’t worthy and that they were all lying and that he was just going to go back at killing people because that’s the only thing he was capable of, even those voices got more quiet and sometimes admitted that okay, maybe he was allowed to… Try.

So, this morning, they were alone, and they had a plan, and they had had a good night and they were ready to climb their way up the tower, and Killua was feeling kinda… Good. Okay. Alright. They were eating warm bread that they had spent the last of their money on, and Gon’s hand was swinging at his side. And he decided to take it. He could, right? Gon did it all the time, just lacing their fingers together to swing their hands between them, higher and faster until one of them tripped. The results were different each time, as Gon had a slightly superior stability, but Killua had the advantage of height.

Killua was taking his second bite of bread when he decided to take his friend’s hand. When they had finished their breakfast, walked the whole way from their cheap hotel to the tower, and climbed to the floor where they were fighting this day, he had not done anything. He had tried, really. It was so stupid. He had looked at his hand, decided to take it, and then had just… Not moved.

The worst part of this was that he was completely capable of initiating contact with Gon, or anyone for that matter. Without thinking about it, he could playfully hit his friends’ shoulders, grab their elbows to push them around, but this was all… Purposeful. He knew exactly in which context friends were supposed to initiate casual, short contact like that. It was fine.

But his brain had decided, without his consent, that were was a limit, a special category of gestures that he was allowed to do, and then the rest. The rest was: initiating hand holding, let pointless contact last for more than 4 seconds, initiate contacts in front of people who knew them. Those were the things he couldn’t do. The rules were a bit blurry: for lingering touches, he found that if he protested, physically or verbally, even if the contact didn’t stop, the voice inside him telling him that he _wasn’t allowed to do that_ quieted down for a bit. The rules about what he could do in front of people were the most incomprehensible. It seemed that, when they were in front of some people, he was restricted in the touches he could initiate, like only the shortest and most casual contacts were allowed. The time he allowed for Gon to keep touching him was also shorter, shrinking down to roughly 2 seconds. Not everyone was concerned: the hostesses of the floors at Heaven’s Arena, even though they knew their name and saw them regularly, weren’t concerned. But Wing, Zushi, and of course Hisoka, all forced him to apply those rules.

He was perfectly aware that calling them rules was idiotic. They weren’t rules, there was nothing actively enforcing them, making him do, or not do certain things. It was all him. Just him, unable to be normal, or to even pretend.

Actually, maybe he was able to pretend. Gon hadn’t made any remarks about it, and neither had Wing or Zushi. Then again, maybe it was just of manifestation of their goodness, that they had noticed how much of a freak he was, even on simple and easy subjects like holding a friend’s hand, and they just didn’t want to bring attention to it. Hisoka had probably noticed, but was waiting for a good moment to bring it up.

Well, tough shit for the asshole, he was not going to get his good moment. Because Killua was going to get over this.

After this first failure, he had spent some time trying to understand the rules, and categorizing them, trying to get a detached point of view, to understand what was causing this. Oh, well, he knew what was causing this. With an education like his, social inadequacies tended to pop up in a lot of unwanted occasions.

But the point was to determine what part of the aforementioned awful upbringing was responsible for this. So he could know how to fix this.

It took more time than he would have liked, but once he observed the “not in front of people” rule, it became clear. The problem was fear. That’s what paralyzed him when he tried to extend a hand, or what prompted him to run when his allotted time was up. This fear was both for him and Gon. Caused by the years of caretakers and butlers getting farther and farther way from him. Whenever one of them was more generous than the others, in the form of soft ruffling of his hair, or a gentle hand to keep him from tripping, he would wake up the following day to the announcement that they had been fired, and they were always replaced by someone colder, harder, not delivering any kind of touch other than severe corrections. It had been a long time ago, and the memories were blurry, but he was sure of it. So whenever he felt like someone’s eyes were on them, like someone could see him getting too attached and report it to his mother, he immediately froze, possessed by the single-minded idea that he could _not. lose. Gon_. He didn’t want his friend to suffer the same fate than the butlers who disappointed his parents, and he didn’t want to be without him. So he couldn’t let anyone know.

When Gon gets hurt, he absolutely hates it, but he can’t stop himself from thinking that it comes at the right moment for him. The day after his realization, and after the beginning of their training. It gives him two months of calm, to train his mind to rationalize against the principles that his family forced into his head.

It’s really fucking hard. He wakes up in the morning, and for half an hour, or an hour sometimes, he thinks that Gon already came to the family residence, opened a gate, met his mother, argued with Gotoh, and finally left with him. At this point, he is already an enemy of the Zoldyck family, protected only by the low interest they have in him, and their worry of how his death would affect Killua’s already rebellious state. He knows this, and excessive hand-holding is not going to doom him any more than he already is. Also, that’s if they even hear about it. He’s perfectly aware that they probably know where he is and what he’s doing, but that doesn’t mean that they hear about every brush of their fingers, every lingering hands on another’s shoulder, when they’re laughing in Gon’s room, or walking too close in the middle of strangers, or talking easily with Zushi. He feels like every contact matters for their safety, but they don’t. The final argument is the training itself. They’re not doing much of it currently, but they’re going to. They’ll become stronger, and Killua isn’t kidding himself, in two months, or six, or a year, they still won’t be strong enough to resist Illumi, his parents, or his grandfather, and certainly not all of them. But they’re going to get better, which means maybe they’ll be able to escape faster.

All of those thoughts don’t really sound cheerful, but he feels like it helps. Even if they don’t sound great, they at least do their job of convincing him that being afraid of taking Gon’s hand is irrational and doesn’t help them in any way, it just makes the time they have together that much less fun. And it’s stupid.

So every morning, he thinks all that, and then thinks harder until he _feels_ it, and then he gets up.

He gets up, he goes to Gon, and every day, he fails.

He knows there’s progress, because now he can think about it, imagine draping himself across the other kid’s shoulders the way that Gon does when he pretends to surprise him, imagine himself playing with his fingers, walk with their arms crossed together for several minutes and not feel as if he has to push him away to stop bad things from happening. He always meets him in the morning with the confidence that today, he can do it, but he always fails. He always ends up looking at the tanned fingers a little bit too long, letting the occasion slip away into nothing. _Tomorrow_ , he thinks, every day.

Eventually, he’s sure that it’s not fear anymore. He still fears his family, so, so much. He’s still terrified of what they can do to them, to Gon, whenever his father will get tired of pretending like he cares about his son. Or whenever his mother or Illumi will escape his control. But the touching is not related to that. More than a few seconds of contact doesn’t block his throat anymore, doesn’t cover him in cold sweat, doesn’t sting his eyes with the menace of tears. It’s a few months later, when they take the boat to go to the island where Gon grew up, that he’s sure that he got rid of that. But his heart still feels like a hand is gripping it and forcing it to beat too fast, too strongly, and he still can’t take Gon’s hand, and he’s worried he never will.

Being clever is also knowing when to give up, and Killua’s good at that. Initially, he wanted to get over his incapacity because it made the time spent together less enjoyable. Now, when Gon leaves his arm stuck to him for more than a few seconds, he still feels like he shouldn’t _have that_ , but he doesn’t feel as bad. So, it’s not worth wondering about it any more.

 

* * *

 

Exactly two months later, Killua feels so dumb. He just entered the most dangerous video game ever created, because he wants to help his best friend find his irresponsible dad. Said best friend smiles, and thanks him, and Killua realizes that it’s bullshit. He came here to be with Gon. Because he’s in love with him.

He feels very stupid because of how obvious it seems. Killua has read a lot, and now, months after leaving his family, he has spent a lot of time on the internet. He researched a lot. Being normal is not innate, you have to learn it, and even though he was deprived of the chance to try for the first eleven years of his life, he’s a great student, and he’s confident he can achieve at least some parts of it fairly quickly. So, he is a little bit embarrassed at how long it took him to figure that out.

His parents are supposed to be in love. He doesn’t exactly remembers why that’s what he thought his whole life, but there it was. So, early on, he figured out that love is what you have for a person when you both think that spending your life together, and starting a family together, is the best thing to do for the both of you. The more your goals align, the more in love you are.

With the years, he understood that this was not how most people saw it. He researched a bit about it, but not much, because he already had a good idea of what most people think love is. But the thing is, he was convinced that they were wrong. Love is people who get along, appreciate each other enough, and think that pretending to have stronger feelings for each other than for anyone else would be a good idea, because that’s what is socially acceptable.

Gon thanks him, with a sunny face, and his voice so full of emotions, and Killua immediately blushes and turns his head. Unless most of his social reactions, this one is instinctive. It’s not that he thinks it’s what he should do: he just does it. His cheeks heat up on their own, and he turns because his friend seeing his reaction would be embarrassing. Gon doesn’t push him, just keep on chattering about how much fun they’re going to have. And Killua thinks.

It’s not the first time that he reacts like that, both for the blushing, and the lack of control over the reaction. He has to figure out why.

It happens when Gon involves emotions. When he states out loud what he feels about Killua, or how amazing he thinks he is. He blushes, and his heart gets faster, and he has this urge to get away, to hide, because Gon must not find out… Find out what? His reaction is embarrassing, obviously, but it feels like something else. The list of symptoms reminds him of something. Immediately, the hand holding problem comes to mind. Prolonged contact did made him blush a few times, and the beating heart and the need to hide are much the same. But that’s not it.

That’s the embarrassing part. The whole two seconds it takes him to associate the list of a heart beating faster, uncontrollable blushing, and the impression of hiding feelings, to the common definition of romantic feelings.

When he finally gets it, he almost stops. He’s finally able to focus on Gon, walking carelessly in front of him, and his voice sounds like his laughter, like the sun on an undiscovered land, like adventure and danger and not regretting it for a second. Killua only keeps on following him because at this point, it’s practically an instinct.

His friend turns towards him to better describe what he thinks is going to be the kind of monster that they have to beat to win the game, and Killua smiles and answers, but he also looks at his hands, waving wildly in an attempt to imitate the shape of what he’s describing as “a giant toad, probably pink, that would be fun, right ?!”

So now, he knows that he’s in love. So he looks at the hand that falls at Gon’s side, answers by saying that “for a toad, don’t you think breathing fire would be cool?”, and he thinks, _that’s it_?

That’s what was stopping him? He’s in love with Gon. Well, he already knew that he cared too much about him, that he was the best person ever, and that he wanted to stay with him. That’s not much more than that. That’s just a name for all of this, actually. This was all that was stopping him from reaching a few inches farther, staying a few seconds longer? That’s ridiculous. And maybe he’s still unable to think about his family, maybe he still has no idea how he can save his little sister and keep Gon safe, because getting attached to two people was a mistake and he’ll regret it. But now he knows that he can love, and it means he’ll find a way.

So he takes two fast steps, getting closer to his friend, and takes his hand. And it’s so easy to do. He tugs him along, heading towards a shop that looks interesting. Gon squeezes his fingers, and he squeezes them back, not even turning around because he knows how huge his smile is.

He’s proven right, immediately after, when he hears the too-loud laughter that he was just thinking about earlier. Gon starts to run, and now he’s the one tugging Killua along with him, because he thinks that this shady guy with blue hair looks like more fun.

Killua follows, of course he does. Now that he’s able to hold onto him, he’s never letting go.

**Author's Note:**

> Don't hesitate to leave me a comment, and thank you for reading!


End file.
